Sisterhood of the Traveling Yoga Pants

Robin Emmerich inspires women to live a life of passion rather than perfection through her new athleisure line, Beauty and the Mess.

By Kat Barclay, Photos by Jared Tennant

If you had told Robin Emmerich that one day she would have her own fashion line, she would have never believed you. Eight years ago, Emmerich also wouldn’t have believed she would be hosting retreats worldwide, teaching interactive virtual courses and working as a life coach.

In 2010, the budding entrepreneur was working in health-care staffing and climbing her way to the top of the corporate ladder. And although it seemed to many like she had a great life, she felt unfulfilled.

“I just had this sinking feeling inside myself that I was supposed to be doing something else,” Emmerich says. “I really started searching for who I was and what I wanted out of life.”

So, Emmerich followed her heart and has now been working with women for almost a decade, using her personal journey to help others realize what they are most passionate about.

“I discovered that not knowing what you’re most passionate about is what leaves people, women in particular, stuck,” Emmerich says. “It’s a completely different way of living. I wanted to help people discover what I had discovered.”

As well as working as a life coach, Emmerich is also a painter, originally taking up the craft as a healthy way to express her emotions after her father’s death. She now uses painting as a regular form of meditation and therapy.

“When you step into personal growth and look at the pieces of your life, it can look like chaos,” Emmerich says. “Even though it can seem scary, there is so much beauty in making something new.”

For Emmerich’s latest endeavor, her athleisure line, Beauty and the Mess, she has taken to screen printing her paintings onto yoga pants, a business that perfectly combines her love for painting with her desire to inspire women. The unique idea came to Emmerich while she was touring a costume gallery in Florence, Italy. Inspired by the beauty and creativity of her surroundings, Emmerich began to envision her artwork as clothing.

“I combined my idea of art on clothing with yoga pants because I’m always in my yoga pants, whether I’m doing yoga, working or sitting in a coffee shop,” Emmerich says. “And I wanted to pair that with the message of passion over perfection. I wanted [the pants]to inspire women to follow their passion, and if they don’t know what their passion is, to inspire them to find it.”

Emmerich saw the pants as a way of building community among women throughout the world. And since the print comes from one of her original paintings, the Beauty and the Mess yoga pants are easy to spot.

“I have this vision of women seeing other women wearing them in an airport,” Emmerich says. “Just knowing that they are like-minded women is really cool. It’s like Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.”

The pants also promote women in a tangible way, as a portion of Beauty and the Mess profits go to Girl Up, the United Nations Foundation program that promotes the health, safety, education and leadership of girls in developing countries.

“I don’t have to do much to promote the pants. They kind of just promote themselves,” Emmerich says. “It’s really beautiful to see just a heartfelt inspiration really take off like that.”